Decembrists in Irkutsk

On December 14, 1825, Lieutenant Panov and other leaders of
the uprising (mostly high-ranking officers) marched armed troops to Senate Square
in St.Petersburg to force the Senate to sign a manifesto
deposing the autocrary, abolishing serfdom, instituting democratic reforms,
etc. However, the uprising was suppressed because of indecision and wavering
on the part of its leaders. Five were executed. Others punished in various ways:
reduced to the ranks and sent to the Caucasus, a scene of fierce fighting at
the time, or deprived of all rights and estates and sent into exile for life
in Siberia. Among the places these exiles were sent was the Irkutsk Province.

After the Amnesty of 1856, declared at the time of Alexander's
ascension to the throne, only forty-two of the exiles returned home. Those who
did were still banned from living in the two capital cities, St. Petersburg
and Moscow.

The first Decembrists came to Irkutsk in the summer of 1826. From Irkutsk they
were sent on to other places according to the terms of their sentences: those
sentenced to banishment went to remote, thinly-populated areas of Eastern Siberia;
those sentenced to hard labour, to mines, factories, prisons and forts.

Siberian
Highway (before the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway)

In spite of all this they retained their best human qualities, strengh and
nobility of spirit, purity of ideals, and an active attitude towards life.

Some of them settled near Irkutsk and later in the town itself. These highly-educated
men and women exerted an enormously beneficial influence on the cultural, moral,
and political development of local society. Their abilities were also of immediate
practical use. For instance, A. Yushnevsky, P. Borisov, A. Podgio and Ye. Obolensky
taught the children mathematics, natural science, Russian, French and music.
F. Wolf and A. Muravyova practiced medicine among the peasants of surrounding
villages. V. Rayevsky opened a school for adult peasants.

S. G. Volkonsky (1788-1965)

A
particularly important role in the life of Irkutsk society was played by S.
G. Volkonsky (1788-1865), ex-major-general, veteran of the 1812 Patriotic War,
and one of the leaders of Decembrist's Southern Society. He was deported to
a village near Irkutsk, where he tilled the fields with the peasants, teaching
them advanced farming methods. His house in Irkutsk (which he designed himself),
became a major centre of cultural life, much like S. Trubetskoy's. Recititations,
amateur theatricals and concerts were given here, and debates were conducted.

Piotr Mukhanov (1799-1854)

Piotr Mukhanov (1799-1854) was the staff-captain of the lzmailovsky
Life-Guards Regiment. He was a friend of the poet Alexander Pushkin, and was
himself a writer, author of novellas and vaudevilles and translator of French
comedies staged in Russia. Mukhanov studied at Moscow University and then at
the Column Leaders' School, which trained officers for the General Staff. After
the failure of the insurrection of December 14, 1825, he was sentenced to twelve
years of penal servitude, which was reduced to eight years followed by exile
for life in Siberia.
In response to questioning by the committee of inquiry, Mukhanov wrote that
at Moscow University he had ardently studied Russian literature and history,
and at the Column Leaders' School, natural sciences and mathematics. In prison
he gave history lectures to his cellmates, demonstrating a brilliant knowledge
of the subject and a splendid style of narration.
After his term in prison, Piotr Mukhanov was deported to the Bratsk settlement,
a remote corner of the lrkutsk province. "This village," he wrote
to his mother, "has depressed me much more than a prison has ever done.
All the nine prisons I was at were better than this settlement."

In the next letter he described his new place of abode thus:
"It is a small village on the banks of the Angara, surrounded by impenetrable
forests, and devoid of ploughlands and meadows, a wild unpopulated desert, a
most abominable place. And when the Governor-General told me I would be sent
to the worst place, he was speaking the complete truth, for I have never seen
a place worse than the Bratsk settlement, despite the fact that I have travelled
all over Russia."

However,
this onerous life could not break the Decembrist's powerful spirit. He started
growing species of rye and wheat hitherto unknown in Siberia, made hydrological
studies of the Angara, and built a church. After countless petitions by his
family, in 1648 Mukhanov was finally allowed to move to the village of Ust-Kuda,
sixteen kilometres from Irkutsk. Here he was among friends again, and read to
them the stories and novellas he had written in prison . On February 19, 1854,
Mukhanov died. Local regional studies students recently discovered the house
where Mukhanov lived shortly before his death.

The wives and fiancees of some Decembrists came to Siberia
to share the lot of their men, overcoming the opposition of the authorities
and of their relatives, losing their rights and possessions, and travelling
thousands of kilometres by sledge and carriage. The women included Yekaterina
Trubetskaya, Alexandra Muravyova, Maria Volkonskaya, and Polina Annenkova.

Yekaterna Trubetskaya, countess and wife of Sergei Trubetskoy, one of the
founders and headers of the Northern Secret Society.
Many of the Decembrists' wives voluntarily followed their husbands. According
to Russia's laws, convicts' wives, if they so desired, were allowed to follow
their husbands to Siberia. However, for the Decembrists' wives a new law or,
rather infringement of the law, was devised. In order to strike the Decembrists
totally out of their lives, the Church and State passed a law whereby the Decembrist's
wives were considered widows and allowed to remarry within their husbands' lifetime
without an official divorce. However, Yekaterina Trubetskaya turned down this
offer, and so did the other Decembrist's wives. When they departed for Siberia,
they left behind their privilegies as nobles and were reduced to the status
of exiled prisoners' wives, with restricted rights of travel, correspondence
and property ownership. They were not allowed to take their children with them,
and were not always allowed to return to the European part of Russia even after
their husbands' death.

But nothing could stop these courageous women. Yekaterina Trubetskaya
was the first to leave for Siberia (in July 1826).

On government orders and on their own initiative, the local
authorities tried to put obstacles in their way. Nicholas I resolved to shut
the Decembrists off completely from the rest of the world. Correspondence with
them was forbidden, and very little information about them reached their nearest
and dearest. The tsar hoped that with the passing of time their names and the
events linked to their names would be forgotten. Those plans were foiled, however,
when the Decembrists' wives set out after the "noble convicts," as
they were called by the Siberian people. The wives could not be banned from
writing, and in their letters they were able to convey the truth to their relatives.
The local officials were highly embarrassed by the presence of these brave women.

And so, after covering over five thousand kilometres, a vast
distance in those days, and enduring inconceivable hardships on the way, the
Decembrists' wives faced one more ordeal in lrkutsk. They had to sign a "renunciation"
allowing them to meet with their husbands not more than twice a week and only
in the presence of an officer, and they had to give up their money and valuables,
only a very small part of which they were to receive back for living expenses.

On the night of July 23, 1826, Sergey Trubetskoy was deported
as part of the the first party of Decembrists sent to Siberia. And on the following
day Yekaterina Trubetskaya set off for Irkutsk. During her long journey she
was pursued by bandits in the taiga, and her carriage broke down on the ice
of the River Yenisei, but nothing could stop her. At Irkutsk the officials did
everything possible to prevent this brave woman from going any further. They
detained her for about nine months, first forcing her to sign the renunciation
paper mentioned earlier, and then telling her that her husband was already on
the other side of Lake Baikal when he was in fact very close by, for the Decembrists
had not yet been sent to work in the mines. Day after day Countess Trubetskaya
suffered these obvious indignities, and in the end gained permission to leave
for Blagodatsk, where the first party of Decembrists was imprisoned. Together
with another Decembrist's wife, Maria Volkonskaya, who had caught up to her
on the way, she rented a little house with tiny rooms that were so cold that
at night hoarfrost would form on the walls and their hair would freeze to the
bed.

In 1827 the Decembrists were sent from Blagodatsk to Chita,
and a few years after to Petrovski Zavod, where a prison was built for them.
Everywhere they were moved, their wives helped them bear the burdens of prison
life.

In
1839, Trubetskoy was deported to the small village of Oyok, thirty-eight kilornetres
from Irkutsk, and Yekaterina Trubetskaya and their three daughters and son,
who had been born in Siberia, went with him.

Although their relatives sent them large sums of money, the
family still had financial problems. The house they built in Oyok cost a considerable
amount, and they also they sent large sums of money to help their comrades scattered
across Siberia's vast cold territory. According to contemporaries' memoirs,
the Trubetskoys' house was open to everyone, and its warm atmosphere was due
mostly to Yekaterna Trubetskaya, with whom anyone felt at ease.

In
1845 the Trubetskoys were allowed to move to lrkutsk, where they rented a house.
In 1854 they began to build a wooden mansion in the style of the 18th century,
with a suite of rooms.
Unfortunately, Yekaterina Trubetskaya, who was so happy about the mansion being
built, never had the chance to live there - she passed away on October 14, 1854.

The
Decembrists made a great contribution to the study of the history, geography,
economy and ethnography of Siberia. They also continued their literary and journalistic
activities. N. Bestuzhev created a whole series of portraits of exiled Decembrists
and their wives and children. These, like many other relics from the lives and
activities of these remarkable men and women, are now on view at the museum
in S. Trubetskoy's house.

The Siberian soil tilled by the Decembrists became for some of them a place
of eternal rest. In the graveyard of the Znamensky Monastery, there are small,
modest monuments of Baikal marble on the graves of N. Panov, P. Mukhanov, and
V. Beschasny. Yekaterina Trubetskaya and her children are also buried here.